Welcome to second semester!

The assignments and due dates listed here are as accurate as I can make them.  As weeks pass and interruptions occur–as they surely will–we will adjust as necessary.

Unit tests (30% of grade):

ilearn (see ilearn page for due dates)

Language Activities Assessment over units 4, 5, and 6:  March 12-13

History eras research and presentation:  end of year

Essays (45% of grade):

Research paper on a topic in education:  February 20

Literary Analysis of The Scarlet Letter:  April 3

Final Timed Writing:  April 30

Skills Test (10% of grade):   March 16 and 19

Formative assignments and other items of interest (15% of grade–the list here is not all-inclusive; these are the assignments and due dates that I know at this time):

January 7:  Language Activity #4 assigned

January 12:  “Album of Styles” activity assigned

January 14:  Language Activity #4 DUE

January 19:  Martin Luther King, Jr. Day–no school

January 20 and 22:  LMC for research persuasive paper work

January 23 and 29:  Computer lab A209 for research persuasive paper work

January 28:  Language Activity #5 assigned

January 30:  “Album of Styles” activity DUE

February 4:  Conferences AND Language Activity #5 DUE

February 5, 10, and 12:  LMC for research

February 6:  District inservice–no school for students

February 16:  Presidents Day–no school

February 17:  Peer review research essay

February 18:  Language Activity #6 assigned

February 20:  Researched persuasive essay DUE

March 2:  Begin reading The Scarlet Letter

March 4:  Language Activity #6 DUE

March 5-6:  AP Timed Writing and Multiple-Choice practice test

March 10:  CSAP testing–classes in afternoon

March 11, 17, and 18:  CSAP testing–no classes

March 23-27:  Spring Break

April 2:  APLAC exam review session 3:30-5 p.m.

April 7:  APLAC exam review session 5-6:30 p.m.

April 9:  APLAC exam review session 3:30-5 p.m.

April 13:  APLAC exam review session 3:30-5 p.m.

April 15:  APLAC exam review session 5-6:30 p.m.

April 18:  PROM

April 20:  APLAC exam review session 3:30-5 p.m.

April 22:  ACT

April 23:  APLAC exam review session 5-6:30 p.m.

April 27:  APLAC exam review session 3:30-5 p.m.

April 28:  Senior Capstone Presentations

April 30-May 1:  AP Timed Writing and Multiple-Choice practice test (TW will count as one of the three essay scores) AND APLAC exam review session 5-6:30 p.m.

May 13:  APLAC EXAM AT 8:00 a.m.

May 18:  Graduation at CU Events Center

May 27:  Memorial Day–no school

May 27-28:  Finals schedule

Check out the ilearn ideas page

If anyone is reading this over break (which I hope you are enjoying), here are the ilearn ideas (well, one idea so far) that I am mulling over.  Feel free to comment.

ilearn page

Ideas for ilearn “i” entries

Click here

Two great ideas students had for author emulation

One:  Go back to an “i” entry and rewrite it in the style of your chosen columnist.  Reflect on the process.

Two:  Write a short piece about anything you want in your own style, and then rewrite it in the style of your columnist.  Reflect on the process.

Other ideas?

Inquiring Minds Want to Know…(updated Nov. 27)

I have been receiving some inquiries about expectations for the remainder of the semester, so here is the long-term plan (I do like to follow my plan as closely as possible, but occasionally it is subject to change as I see what the needs of the class are):

November 12:  Political project due (students have been following the Presidential campaign and collecting ads in order to analyze them rhetorically–their analysis and collected ads are due).

November 12:  ilearn rotation group #3 due

November 13:  ilearn rotation group #4 due

November 18:  Vocabulary activity #1 is due; ilearn rotation #1 is due

November 19:  Vocabulary activity #2 assigned–due Dec. 2

November 20:  I will assign the final writing piece based on the novel The Things They Carried; this will not be a typical “book report”; rather, it will be a piece that students write that is modeled off of O’Brien’s writing style.  The due date for this is December 5.  ilearn rotation #2 due

November 24:  In-class persuasive writing–due December 2 9

November 25:  In-class work day–persuasive writing, Vocabulary activity #2, or piece modeled on The Things They Carried

December 1:  Tentative date for junior-level skills test part 1; if not, we’ll have another in-class work day to be used for peer review of any of the three pieces due this week

December 2:  Tentative date for junior-level skills test part 2; if not, Vocabulary activity #3 assigned; Vocabulary activity #2 and persuasive writing piece due; ilearn rotation #3 due

December 3:  Vocabulary activity #3 assigned if not completed yesterday

December 4:  ilearn rotation #4 due

December 5:  The Things They Carried piece due

December 9:  ilearn rotation #1 due–last one this semester; persuasive proposal due (I think–once again, I’m updating from memory, so someone please correct me if I’ve “misremembered” something!)

December 10:  Vocabulary activity #3 due

December 11:  Timed Writing practice essay (40 minutes)–it is possible that this will be moved to Dec. 16; ilearn rotation #2 due–last one this semester

December 12:  AP practice test–multiple choice–it is possible that this will be moved to finals day on Dec. 17/18

December 15:  Vocabulary test on activities 1, 2, and 3

December 16:  ilearn rotation #3 due–last one this semester

December 17/18:  Finals schedule (I believe the schedule will be that periods 1-4 have finals on Wed., and periods 5-8 will have finals on Thurs.; I will let you know as soon as I know); ilearn rotation #4 due–last one this semester

“Big ticket” grades yet to go into the book:

Skills test (10% of the summative)–students took this test Nov. 5; I should have the grade reports and have the final grades in the book this week–overall, it looks like students in AP Language did very well.  This one is now in the book.

Essays (45% of the summative grade):  Paton essay (already in the book); Writing piece modeled after The Things They Carried; either the persuasive essay or the second timed writing piece (I will decide after I see how the next few weeks shape up and how much instructional time we get for timed writings)

Unit tests (30% of the summative grade):  ilearn final semester grade; Political project (in the book); Vocabulary test on activities 1, 2, and 3

Please note that your semester final exam, which consists of a timed writing and a multiple-choice test, will NOT count as formative grades as we have not had enough practice.  I will use the information from these tests to help determine where second semester takes us.

Kiplinger’s 100 Best College Values

The Winter edition of Kiplinger’s Success with Your Money evaluated 500 public colleges and universities by looking at academic quality, teacher-student ratio, graduation rates, and costs in order to discover the best schools in the nation. What did they find?

http://www.kiplinger.com/tools/colleges/

First Quarter Report

It’s hard to believe that we are almost to the end of the first quarter already (two weeks from today).  Time really does fly, it seems.  We are well into our study of rhetoric and have begun our unit on politics.  Students are working on a project for which they choose one of the Presidential candidates and collect campaign advertisements to analyze for rhetorical effectiveness.  This assignment is due November 12.

We spent several weeks working with the novel Cry, the Beloved Country on a rhetorical level; students then wrote their first rhetorical analysis in response to Paton’s skills as a rhetor.  During this time, we discussed the three appeals (to logos, ethos, and pathos) as well as some specific rhetorical devices, including anaphora, antimetabole, and epistrophe.

All students have blogs and are blogging.  I have asked that they respond to a topic that I post weekly or bi-monthly and that they sometimes respond to posts by their classmates.  I have also requested that they create some categories on their blogs in which to place writings about topics of their own choosing.  They are infinitely more tech-savvy than I am, so I told them if I can figure out how to do this, they certainly can.

We have been working out of the Norton Reader this week and will continue to do so for a few more weeks.  We’ve read “Democracy” by E.B. White (of Charlotte’s Web and Elements of Style fame), “Shooting an Elephant” by George Orwell, and “The Declaration of Independence.”  Students have answered questions and done some analysis on each of these readings, and they’ve have had some terrific insights.  We’ll be doing a bit more with the Declaration next week, and we’ll look at Elizabeth Cady Stanton’s “Declaration of Sentiments and Resolutions” as it compares to the original Declaration.  We’ll also be reading two essays about Columbus Day and employing a technique called “PMI” to help students think about all aspects of the issue.  Also coming up are readings by Niccolo Machiavelli, Abraham Lincoln, Lani Guinier, and Queen Elizabeth I.

The ilearn projects are going better for some students than others.  I have told them that I will be putting the grades in at just past the halfway point, so they need to have 25-30 well-written entries/artifacts by the rotation that ends on Oct. 30.  This is very important as this counts as one of three “unit tests” for this semester.  If you haven’t seen your student’s project, ask him or her about it.  Some of them are doing some very interesting activities.

As I have evaluated more of the students’ writing, I have noticed some trends in the errors that they consistently make.  I’ve presented grammar lessons on pronoun/antecdent issues, dangling modifiers, punctuation of quotations, and the use of coordinating conjunctions.  We’ve also discussed the issues having to do with affect/effect, principal/principle, then/than, and of/have.  We also briefly discussed the issue of the subjunctive mood of a verb, which is no longer commonly used but when used, should be implemented correctly.  This is one of the rules–along with affect/effect– that I told them they just have to memorize, and then get on with their lives.

Finally, the students will take a practice AP test on Thursday, Oct. 9 and Friday, Oct. 10.  They will receive reports the following week that will show them their strengths and weaknesses in each of the categories on the test.

Please do not hesitate to contact me if you have any questions, comments, concerns, or compliments!  Email is best, though I do check my phone messages once a day as well.  I’ll post another update in about six weeks unless one is necessary before then.

Mrs. Scow’s personal letter

Dear Aspiring Rhetoricians,

Prior to being asked if I wanted to teach this class three years ago, I wasn’t totally clear about what Advanced Placement English Language and Composition class was supposed to be. I didn’t know that it dealt with rhetorical strategies and the “why’s” of what writers do. I love to teach writing, though, and I love to write, so I decided to take the challenge and become one of the three teachers to begin this class at Legacy High School. I am so glad I did. This is one of the most rewarding and challenging classes I have had the pleasure to teach in my career, and I am so thankful that I get to do this every day.

I am happily married and have been for a long, long time. I have two children who have both graduated from CSU; Jason has a Technical Journalism degree with an emphasis in Public Relations, and Jessica is a Mechanical Engineer who is currently waiting on her work visa so she can take a job in Northern Ireland. Jason, on the other hand, still hasn’t found a job and is moving home as I write. Both of them are graduates of LHS. We have suddenly gone from having an “empty nest” with one dog and four cats to having two kids, five cats, and two dogs. I wonder if some variation of that would make a great title for a book. I’m always saying I’m going to write a book, but I’ve never gotten around to it. The closest I’ve come is editing two genealogy books for my husband’s aunt; I have some of my “memoirs” published in one of those books.

I earned my Master’s degree in Instruction and Curriculum in the Content Area (ICCA) in English at CU in December 2006 and am taking time off from going to class myself for the time being. I know that more education is always possible, and I am already thinking (it’s on my radar anyway) about what type of Master’s degree to work on next. Perhaps something fun, like creative writing.

My hobbies include reading (my favorite book in the whole world is To Kill a Mockingbird), photography, digital scrapbooking, writing, and hanging out with my family. We like to go camping together, we love to go to Saratoga, WY, and sit in the hot springs in the winter, and we go to the movies occasionally. Otherwise, we just hang out at home and play games and watch TV. We’re kinda boring sometimes, but we like it that way.

I read quite a few books this summer, both for fun and to keep up with your summer reading assignments. I liked Drop City by T. C. Boyle, and I enjoyed rereading Cry, the Beloved Country. Believe it or not, I also really enjoyed diving into Elements of Style again, especially the Introduction. I also read several travel books, which I do often since I can’t go to all the places I’d like to visit at the moment. My daughter Jess shares my enjoyment of traveling vicariously through the reading of stories about great adventures, so we pass books back and forth all the time. Because of this class, I also read lots of essays, and my favorite collection of the summer is Writers [on Writing]: Collected Essays from The New York Times.

One of my guilty pleasures is that I enjoy reality television shows. My son says there’s not much real about them, but I say he’s a cynic. I enjoy Hell’s Kitchen, Survivor, Big Brother, The Amazing Race, So You Think You Can Dance, and many of the TLC shows like What Not to Wear, Trading Spaces, and Miami Ink. We all have to have some things we enjoy that aren’t good for us, right? I can’t watch the History Channel exclusively!

I am very happy that all of you have chosen to take this class. I know that you didn’t have a choice as to which of the three teachers you were assigned, so I will do my level best to make sure that you get as good an experience as other students in this course. I will do my best to make sure that you get the information you need in order to do well on the AP test in May and to have a head start when it comes to college-level reading and writing in your future. You can count on the fact that I will be working hard on this class; I plan to read what you read and do the assignments that you do. I have spent many hours this summer working on the curriculum; however, if we find that certain things I have planned won’t work for us, I’m willing to be flexible. Please talk to me about any problems you have in the class, and please let me know when things are going well, too. I’m very willing to work with you and to help you in any way that I can.

I am looking forward to this year, and I hope that you are as excited about APLAC as I am!

Blogging for students?

This is an experiment to see if my AP students will use blogging to help improve their writing and communication skills. I must figure out a lot of things logistically, but the first step–creation of the blog–is complete. There is still much to consider: how to add students; whether to add students’ blogs to this page or have them create their own blog pages and link to this page; what the writing/responding requirements will be–that’s at least a beginning of the list of things to do. Oh, yeah! And don’t forget the login and password….